1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, and a program and a storage medium therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a printer, a copier, a facsimile machine and a multifunction peripheral, which incorporates the functions of some or all of the other apparatuses, are known as image processing apparatuses, each of which includes an image input/output mechanism.
Such an image processing apparatus employs, as input data, data received from an externally connected host computer, data read by the image reader included in the image processing apparatus, and data stored in a portable storage medium. These input data are stored in a program storage medium provided for the image processing apparatus, and are then processed by the controller of the image processing apparatus, employing a program supplied for the purpose. The thus processed data are then output by the output unit included in the image processing apparatus. The processed data are transmitted to the external output device, or are also stored in the storage medium. The image processing apparatus performs this processing sequence in accordance with a user issued output instruction.
Recently, a multi-image file format, which uses a single file to hold multiple image data, has come to be employed as an image data format for the image processing apparatus. According to this format, a single file internally includes a hierarchical structure in which a plurality of images are stored along with associated information. These internally stored images consist either of a main image, which represents a file, and one or more sub images, or of all images that are stored in the file, which have the same hierarchical rank.
For example, according to the description given in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-149153, images having multiple resolutions are stored in a single file, and an image to be displayed is selected in consequence with an area in a display device in which the image is to be displayed.
In the conventional art, when an image file prepared using such a multi-image file format is output, either only the main image or an equivalent image, or all the images stored in the multi-image file are selected as output target.
Therefore, since in appearance an image file created using a multi-image file format is a single file, a user issuing a data output instruction for such an image file will be unable to ascertain whether the image file to be output is one prepared using a normal format (only a single image) or one prepared using a multi-image file format.
Thus, when a main image or an equivalent image is selected as output target during an output process in the conventional manner, a user will not know what other images are included in the multi-image file.
Furthermore, when output processing is to be performed for a multi-image file and all images stored therein are selected as output target, neither the image type to be output nor the number of images will be obvious to a user.
As described above, since a user can not identify the images stored in an image file prepared using the multi-image file format, the user can not perform the output process as prescribed.
While taking this problem into account, one objective of the present invention is to provide selective processing to be performed for a plurality of images stored in a multi-image file.